


a bookmark placed neatly

by marginaliana



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M, No Ending, and completely ignores it, written before The Golden Circle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 09:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15660627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: He gets in the habit of coming back to Harry first after missions, enough so that Merlin always comes to find him in the hospital wing.





	a bookmark placed neatly

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before The Golden Circle and didn't quite know what to do with it. I won't be finishing it, so I'm throwing it out here just as it is. I hope you can get some enjoyment out of it nonetheless.

They find Harry in one of the cells, afterwards. He's battered and bandaged and hardly breathing but he's alive. The sight of him makes something switch on, in the back of Eggsy's brain. He knows, then, that Harry is on the list of people that he loves, a third name right alongside his mum and Daisy. It isn't just a matter of respecting him, or of wanting to strip off that tidy suit and rough him up and get Harry's cock in his mouth, not anymore. Harry is it for him.

Of course, he can't do a damn thing about it, not in the moment. Harry's not even conscious, for one thing, and for another there are about three hundred angry people in all the other cells who need transporting back to their home countries, not to mention all the chaos that undoubtedly awaits them outside. No, if he wants to make Harry proud – and he does, oh how he wants to make Harry proud – he'll have to put the work first, have to do it right. 

He sees Harry loaded onto the plane, safely ensconced in the bed at the back, lets himself curl his fingers around Harry's for one brief second. Then he straightens his shoulders and lets Merlin tell him where he's going next.

\-----

It's two and a half weeks before he steps foot in Britain again. Too many heads of state are dead, Valentine's converts or just knocked off by their own security crew in those first few minutes of the chip's activation, and there are people rising to take their places. Some of them decent enough, yes, but a fair amount not at all. Eggsy goes to Russia first and kills six men before Harry's even made it home to base. He steals a shitload of files and data, sleeps four hours in a fantastic hotel bed that really deserves his undivided attention, then gets up and flies to Germany and kills six more. The last of these is a truly sick fuck, judging by what's in his basement, and Eggsy clings to the feeling of a job well done as he sets the whole place aflame. Then it's on to France, and then Italy. 

He doesn't see Roxy, either – she's off to Norway and Sweden and some other bit of Russia than Eggsy's, though he's long gone by then in any case. Other Kingsmen, he knows, are on the ground in China and Japan and America and fuck knows where else. One of them – Bedivere – had lost his head to one of Valentine's implants, but thankfully the others had all been loyal. Eggsy genuinely doesn't know how they would have managed otherwise. Hell, he doesn't know how Merlin's managing now, coordinating them all. Maybe he'll buy the man a really nice bottle of something deeply alcoholic while he's in Italy.

Italy takes fucking ages to deal with, almost a week. When he's finally done and Merlin tells him he can come home, at least for a couple of days, Eggsy's almost too exhausted to be happy about it. He stumbles onto the jet and plugs in the last of the thumb drives he'd liberated from the last mobster's office, keeping himself awake by focusing on the mountain of paperwork Merlin's left him to fill out. When they land, a car is waiting; the driver takes him to the shop without even asking. He nearly falls asleep in the private tube, but manages to hold it together long enough to find Harry in the hospital wing and reassure himself that everything's okay. He sits down in the chair by Harry's bedside and tells himself he'll only stay another minute.

\-----

When he wakes up he's slumped backwards in the chair and his neck has a tremendous crick in it. The hospital rooms have no windows so it takes him a moment to find the clock on the wall and discover that it's half past four. Harry hasn't moved, and Eggsy takes the time to examine him in detail. The bandage wrapped around his head draws his attention first, of course. Merlin's assured him that the bullet only grazed Harry's skull, that he'll have a nasty scar but probably little else in the way of permanent damage. Harry's got a split lip, too, though it's started to heal, and there's a bruise just fading on the side of his jaw.

He's the most beautiful thing Eggsy's ever seen.

Eggsy sits there for another hour, just watching him, thinking about what he's going to do when Harry wakes up. If there's one thing Eggsy had learned from growing up without his father, it was that he'd better take whatever time he'd got with the people that he loved. It was why he hadn't moved out, even when Dean had moved in – he could've found a place with a couple of his mates, easy, but then he'd have lost that time with his mum and he just couldn't do it. Not to her and not to himself, either, though there were plenty of days when he thought about it. It was why he babysat Daisy whenever his mum wanted, too, even if it meant missing a night out with his mates, even if it meant sitting around for hours wearing something pink and sparkly and pretending to be a princess.

And so he knows that he's got to tell Harry how he feels. Got to be straight with him, because otherwise he'll just be wasting time that, realistically, they're neither of them going to have. Maybe Harry won't want him like that, will just let him down gently, but the possibility of that doesn't change anything. He's still got to say something.

He just has to figure out how he's going to do it, that's all.

Eventually Merlin comes by and kicks him out of the room, sends him back to Harry's house to eat something and sleep for real. Eggsy considers the sofa, but the lure of a bed – Harry's bed – is too great. The pillow smells like Harry's cologne. Eggsy's asleep again as soon as his head hits the pillow.

\-----

When he comes back the next day he brings the book that he'd found on Harry's bedside table. There's a bookmark placed neatly between pages 82 and 83, lined up with the top edge of the cover. He stops by Merlin's office first, delivers the bottle he'd bought on the last day in Italy and then left forgotten in the car on the way from the airport. Luckily he'd had a Kingsman driver, who'd held onto it for him rather than making off with it as any other cabbie might've done. 

Merlin eyes the bottle for a long moment before he reaches out a hand, slipping his fingers around the base and taking it from Eggsy's hand. He tips the neck of the bottle to point back at Eggsy. "I suppose you're not completely useless after all," he says, but the corners of his mouth have turned up, just the tiniest bit. 

"Cheers, bruv," Eggsy says, in his best exaggerated accent, and he knows he's done all right when Merlin just rolls his eyes and tucks the bottle into a drawer of his desk.

"You going to go and sit with Harry?" Merlin says, more soberly.

"Yeah, if you ain't got anything that's, y'know, on fire," Eggsy says. "Or that needs to be on fire."

"Nothing at present," Merlin says. "I'm sure it won't last, but go on for now. Just..." He hesitates. "Just keep in mind that we don't know when he's going to wake up. It could be weeks. It could be months."

"But he's gonna wake up?" Eggsy can't help but ask.

"The prognosis is good," Merlin says, and then, dryly, "That means—"

Now it's Eggsy's turn to roll his eyes. "I know what that means, you snobby bastard." He thumps Harry's book against his thigh. "Right, I'm off, then. You know where to find me when you need me."

"Indeed," Merlin says. 

\-----

He sits in the chair beside Harry for the rest of the day. Some of the time he reads aloud, or tells Harry's closed eyes and unresponsive face about what he's been doing the last couple of weeks. Other times he's silent, but it doesn't feel forced. Just peaceful. 

Something in him unwinds, just a little. 

\-----

It isn't until nearly two weeks later that Harry wakes for the first time. Eggsy's finished reading the book from Harry's nightstand and has picked another from the bookshelf in his study, more or less at random. It had turned out to be about a bloke who got turned into a cockroach, and he's actually really enjoying it even though it's mad as fuck. 

In the time since he's returned from Italy he's had three other missions, two in France and one in Switzerland. He and Roxy had even managed to shut down an organization in London that was trying to hack Valentine's tech, apparently just for shits and giggles – that time they hadn't even had to shoot anyone, just scare the shit out of them and confiscate it all. He's taken care of things at home, too – got his mum and Daisy set up in a nice new place, made sure Dean and the rest of the gang won't bother her ever again. It hadn't taken much. 

Mission-wise, things seem like they're finally beginning to return to normal out there, or at least the kind of normal that involves only having to break into a heavily guarded mansion every _other_ week. Which means that Eggsy is back at base, halfway through _Metamorphosis_ , when suddenly Harry sucks in a shuddering, gasping breath. Eggsy fumbles the book in shock, drops it, manages to lean over the bed as Harry opens his eyes. There's a fraught moment when they don't seem to focus.

Eggsy says, hurriedly, "Harry, you're all right. Valentine's dead and it's over and you're safe, yeah?"

Harry sucks in a few more breaths, but each is a little less violent than the last and his eyes lock onto Eggsy's face. Finally he says, "Eggsy?" And then, before Eggsy can reply, "Eggsy. _Fuck._ Please tell me someone killed the bastard."

Eggsy smirks. "Yeah, Harry," he says softly. "I killed 'im."

\-----

He's kicked out after that, by a nurse with more muscles than god. When they let him back in an hour later, Harry is asleep again, but it seems more natural now. Eggsy watches him for a while, then gets the book out again and goes back to where he'd left off, more quietly this time. 

That night he sleeps in Harry's bed again, like he has done off and on for the last few weeks, and for the first time it feels like an imposition.

\-----

In the morning Merlin sends him out on a mission to Scotland. It's easier to leave than it might have been, now that he's seen Harry awake, now that he's talked to him, if only for a moment, but it's frustrating, too. 

He spends three days infiltrating a nuclear base and then two and a half hours defusing a really nasty bomb that's been stuck to the side of one of the proper bombs (and how is this his life, when he's got occasion to separate out proper bombs from improper ones?). When he gets back, he goes straight to Harry's room without even thinking about it.

Merlin's there already, looks up as Eggsy comes in and shoves a stack of paperwork into Eggsy's hands. "Oh, good, you're back," he says. "You're off until tomorrow at least. Have these done by noon."

"Yeah, sure," Eggsy says, but he's barely paying attention. Behind Merlin, in the bed, Harry's eyes are open. There's a faint smile on his face. 

Merlin sighs and stands, claps Eggsy on the back. "Noon," he says, but with a tone that says he's lost all hope of being listened to. When he goes out, the door shuts behind him with a faint whump.

Eggsy drops the pile of papers into the chair Merlin's just vacated, stuffs his hands in his pockets. "All right?" he asks finally.

"Perfectly well, thank you," Harry says. His voice is soft, thready, but unmistakably himself. Eggsy has to snort.

"Think your idea of 'perfectly well' might be a bit fucked, mate," he says.

Harry's smile gets a bit wider. "Possibly," he allows. "And yourself? Mission went all right?"

"Huh?" Eggsy says, and then, "Oh, yeah, fine. Didn't even have to punch anybody at all." He pretends sadness at this, but to tell the truth he's glad to have been in and out without a fight. He's bloody tired.

"What a shame," Harry says.

"I s'pose I'll have to bear up under the disappointment," Eggsy says. He takes a hesitant step forward. The banter is wonderful, but it's no substitute for all the other words that are piling up in the back of his throat. 

But Harry's eyelids suddenly look a little heavier, like they've abruptly decided to slide downwards, despite his best efforts. "Oh," he says. "I do... apologize."

"Nah, it's okay, bruv," Eggsy says. By the time he's finished the sentence Harry's eyes are closed, his mouth slack. Eggsy sits down in the chair, realizing only after he's done it that he's sat down on Merlin's stack of papers. He gets up, slides them out, and sits down again. "Don't you worry about a thing," he whispers. 

\-----

He's worked his way through most of the paperwork by the time he comes in the next morning, except for a few places he's left strategically blank to ask Harry about. It had occurred to him, somewhere around eleven, in the middle of Form SQ-25, that maybe – just maybe – this is one of those things where he ought to apply a little bit of finesse instead of good old brute force. Maybe he ought to work Harry up to the idea of the two of them spending time together, before he busts out with 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you.' Or even with 'I want to kiss you,' for that matter.

So this time he knocks first, gets Harry's faint, "Come in," before he opens the door.

\-----

He gets in the habit of coming back to Harry first after missions, enough so that Merlin comes to find him. Half the time they end up just debriefing there – Merlin's idea of debrief is mercifully short, though it's an open question as to whether it's because he doesn't really want to hear it or because he knows the agents too well to expect it.

Sometimes Eggsy and Harry just talk; when Merlin's there, the three of them talk or sometimes Eggsy just sits and listens to the two of them talk bollocks to each other with the history of decades of bollocks to build on. It's good. It's really good.

And between times, he keeps reading. Mostly when Harry's asleep, because it seems slightly embarrassing to it when he's awake, and Harry sleeps _tons_. Eventually Harry catches him at it – Eggsy looks over and finds Harry watching him, and he nearly chokes on the sentence. 

But Harry doesn't say anything, not a word, and eventually Eggsy just breathes in and goes back to the Kafka. 

When that's done, he picks something else off the shelf, more or less at random. It turns out to be by Dickens, and though this one takes a little more effort, he carries on through it, page after ceaseless page. He's never read so much before – he's never thought of himself as a person who likes reading. It was easy to get the shit kicked out of you for reading too much, on the estate, and anyway the telly was always there, wherever you were. Everybody was always watching the same stuff, so you'd always have something to talk about. 

But there's a pleasure in this, too. The old-fashioned language of the book begins to make more sense to him, after so many days of it, or at least to roll off his tongue a little more easily. Like running, like parkour – muscle memory. And he begins to learn the trick of understanding it, too. Letting the words roll through his head without trying to cling onto each one so hard that he misses the next three. 

To hold on, and to let go. That's everything his life's ever been, and most of the time he'd got it all wrong about when he ought to be doing which one. 

Still. He can't help but think Harry's one thing he's got to hold onto. 

\-----

One afternoon, mid-way through chapter seven, Harry says, abruptly, "Eggsy."

Eggsy jerks his head up from the book.

"You must know how proud I am of you, Eggsy. I know I— that I left you with harsh words."

"Harry." Eggsy folds over the corner of the page, more to have something to do with his hands than to actually mark his place. "You ain't got to—"

But Harry carries on talking over him, as if the words are determined to come out. "I regretted my harshness almost immediately, of course. But I thought I'd have time to rectify the situation. When I stood outside that church and realized those might truly be the last words I spoke to you..." He looks up, meets Eggsy's eyes deliberately. "I am very sorry. And very proud of you."

Eggsy swallows. He considers and then discards at least three different flippant replies. Finally he puts his hand awkwardly on Harry's foot, above the blanket. If he's honest, it's mostly just because he wants to touch Harry somehow, even if it has to be like this. "Apology accepted." 

Harry sighs out a breath, as if he might have actually thought Eggsy's forgiveness was ever in question.

"But that means you got to take mine, too," Eggsy says. "What I said—"

"None of it was untrue," Harry says, his voice low and pained.

Eggsy makes a noncommittal noise. "It was a proper nasty thing to say, Harry," he says, "and I didn't—" But no, he can't say he didn't mean it, at least at the time, and he doesn't want to lie to Harry, not about this. Finally he settles on, "So I'm sorry."

"Eggsy—"

"The gentlemanly thing is to accept a fucking apology, yeah?"

Harry glares at him for a moment, then snorts. "Yes, all right. Apology accepted."

"Good," Eggsy says. "And as for the other thing, about you bein' proud..." He swallows hard. "Thanks."

"Good," Harry says, almost an echo, and then, "And don't you dare dog-ear any more pages of that book, do you hear me?"

Eggsy laughs and makes a show of smoothing out the crease in the paper, but inside he's tucking this moment away to savor later.


End file.
